Abiding in Christ: A Joy-Filled Life

He will give it to you. Until now, you've asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. And then I want to read John 15, 11. As we talked about in our Sunday school classes this morning, this passage of scripture is that one that begins with, I am the vine, you are the branch. If you abide in me, and I will abide in you. And if you abide in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit. And then he says at the end of that little story there, he says in verse 11, these things, what things? This abiding, I have spoken to you, that my joy be in you, and that your joy may be full. Second time that we see that phrase, that your joy may be full. As my wife has very eloquently put it, and she did a good job, right, this morning? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want her to hear that, because she never thinks she does a good job. She did a wonderful job, a beautiful story, and I wanted you to hear her story this morning. Randy Frazee did the same thing. I had no clue. I had not watched the video this morning. I had no clue that Randy Frazee was gonna use his wife in the video we watched this morning, and we kind of looked at each other, and said, wow, this must be a God thing that we're allowing my wife to be able to speak this morning, and that joy, as she's already said, it's in you, it's not based on the circumstance. So there's three quick things that I want us to understand that if we are abiding in Christ, he will abide in us, but by abiding in Christ, we have a joy-filled life. So there's three quick points in this passage in John chapter 16 that I want us to catch. Number one, if we're abiding in Christ and have a joy-filled life, it overcomes sorrow. Look there in verse 20. Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice, you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. The truth of it is, they probably didn't quite understand what Jesus was talking about. What he is talking about is his impending death, the fact that he was gonna die on the cross of Calvary, that that was going to happen. They were probably a little perplexed, even so, later on, Peter says, no way, I'll die with you, I'll go with you, I'm not gonna deny you, those kind of things, and Jesus says, get thee behind me, Satan kind of thing. They were looking at the wrong things, but Jesus was trying to assure them that even through death, they would find joy, but for some weird reason, the world, those who were against Jesus would rejoice at his death. I don't know about you, but that seems a little awkward that we would rejoice in that kind of suffering and sacrifice, but for us as Christians, we understand the necessary atonement for our sin. The media today, we talked about this in our Sunday school as well, the media today tries to sell you joy, do they not? If you will just buy our car, our Lexus, our Volvo, our Audi, if you'll just buy that car, you'll walk away with the most joy you've ever had in your life. My goodness, even Marillax will sell you joy, right? If you'll just take our product, you'll feel so much joy in your life, or Preparation H, for that matter, will give you joy if you'll just buy that product. The media tries to sell us temporary joy. That thing where we get depressed and we say, I'm just gonna go to the mall, if we had one we'd go to, right? And just buy myself some joy. You know, for me, Rick, if I could just have a boat, I would be happy, but then I would need a truck to pull that boat, and if I have a truck, I might as well have a trailer so I can camp out and fish together. Where does it stop? All those things. You know, I've had this feeling, you've had this feeling before. You ever bought a new car, not necessarily a new one, but new to you, and you buy that car, and you're so excited that you're gonna buy this car, and as soon as I get off the car lot, I say, oh, what have I done? Am I gonna be able to afford this, you know? Am I gonna be able to afford the insurance? You know, all those things, and that's why we always pray before we buy these kind of big things. But we think that that, and it goes away quickly, that joy, you know, the first scratch, you know, all those things happen. That joy, that is just temporary stuff. The world defines joy as success, riches, power. Just one more thing, and I'll be all right, but it all fades away. Rejoicing that Jesus is talking about is living in him. Witnessing his death and burial and resurrection and knowing that that was not for aught. It was for our salvation. It was for us, the ability to have eternal life is where we find joy. Peter would say it like this in 1 Peter 1, verse six through eight. It says, so be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead. Even though you must endure many trials for a little while, these trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire test and purifies gold. Listen to that, folks, that test is sometimes our riches that your faith is far more precious than mere gold. In other words, your faith is not based on these temporary things that we behold and that we own in our world. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. That is when our joy will be in completion. Verse eight, you love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls. My friends, that is joy. That is the real joy that we're talking about. And the truth of it is, we can't even express it. It is inexpressible joy. We can't adequately tell people how much we are glad that we have salvation, that we have the hope of eternal life, but we do our best. We share that inexpressible. In fact, when we are sharing that kind of inexpressible joy, people see it. People know it. And they say, I want some of that. Because therein where is peace lies. Which happens to be next week. Do you realize, remember last week we talked about love. And we said that love is what binds all of these other virtues that we're talking about. It's what binds all of these other virtues together. And I would say the same sense about this joy because I've heard it more than once this morning already. That when I have joy, my wife said it, when I have joy, then I have peace. We're gonna talk about that next week. So joy kind of builds upon that peace. Gratia Burnham was at our conference yesterday. There were seven of us at the Normative Church Conference in Salina. Just an amazing woman. If you've not heard Gratia's story, certainly you've heard about it. Certainly you've read about it. She was in the Philippines and had been captured, her and her husband, and spent many months in the captured state. Suffering, sick, ill, pain, literally pain. And being tortured in some senses. And her husband ended up dying. And of course she was able to escape on that day that her husband was shot in the fire that was going on. And she said several many things. And I'm just amazed because when she gets up to talk, this is the second time I've heard her, she's just this bundle of joy. She is the essence of joy. You can see it in her face. Because she knows she's gonna see her husband again someday. She said something that stuck with me yesterday. She said, we should not put a do not disturb sign on our hearts. And I think so often when we are not feeling joy or when things are not going in our life right or we feel very sorrowful, and folks, sorrow is gonna come in our lives, but underlying that is the joy and knowing that this is not the end of our life. But if we put a do not disturb sign on our heart and say, God, I can handle this on my own, we gotta realize we can't. That joy that we have, that joy that lives in our heart overcomes sorrow, folks. And we will live through trials and we will live through sorrows. But because we have a Savior who's victorious, because we have a Savior who's given us a promise of eternal life, there is coming a day when there will be no more sorrow. And we will live in everlasting joy because of His promise to us. The key point on this point number one is that we are not dependent upon the world for our circumstances to provide joy. We are not dependent. Everybody say that, we are not dependent. We are not dependent on the world. Who are we dependent upon? Gee, God, Jesus. So abiding in Christ is a joy-filled life, and if we do that, it will last forever, point number two. It will last forever. Look at verse 22. It says, so also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. That is a great promise. No one will take that joy from you. Remember the old song? Chewy, chewy, tootsie roll last a long time. Never long enough. When we went to the men's conference, we all had a piece of peanut butter chocolate pie. One piece was not enough. Didn't last long enough. I can remember buying my grandkids and my kids, those big, you can still buy them, those big suckers, you know, lollipops that are that big around. Now, I think those things do last forever. I don't recall my kids ever eating a whole one of those things. We threw more of those things away after about four or five licks, you know, that was it. You know, they realized they were gonna get the whole thing eaten. Last forever. No, all the things that we have in this world, all the cars, all the boats, all the trailers, all the things that we possess, they're temporary, folks. The joy that God offers is forever. That's closely associated with our salvation. When we come to know Jesus Christ as our real and personal savior, he comes to live in us, he comes to dwell in us. The Holy Spirit of God lives inside us. He will not leave us, he will not forsake us. Therefore, we have the joy of Christ living in us. Are you acting like it? Do you express that joy to other people? God has given us something real. God has given us salvation so rich, so free. In Psalms 20, verse five, it says, may we shout for joy over your salvation in the name of our Lord, set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. May we shout for joy for our salvations. Folks, we should be shouting with joy because we are so much saved. And we have a promise and the hope of eternal life. Because of this security of our salvation, we can be dauntless. We can even be daring in sharing the life of Christ with people. We should be sharing our strength. joy, our story, and how God has saved us and He lives in us. Third point this morning, abiding in Christ is a joy-filled life. As a result, it's a product of faith. A product of faith. Look at verse 24. Until now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive. Again, here it is, that your joy may be full. God doesn't want you to have partial joy. He wants you to have complete joy. I would contend with you that when you come to know Christ, that complete joy comes to dwell inside you. Answered prayer brings complete joy in our life. If you could have heard me yesterday, you would say that it is amazing that I'm even able to speak this morning. At breakfast time yesterday, I had no voice. I told Larry Fry that he was going to have to preach today. But I know I'd had it covered because I knew my wife could go another 30 minutes if she really wanted to. But I know those six people that were with me, they didn't tell me, but I know they started praying for me. That may seem like a simple prayer, but I woke up this morning and had a stronger voice than I've had in a few weeks. It's still weak. You can always hear that every Sunday. But I know people prayed for me, and I prayed. That seems like a simple prayer. But folks, when you see the major answer in prayer in my life with my wife, and how God has blessed us for an additional 16, now if we not celebrate 25 years, we have celebrated 40 years of marriage. We find joy in that. We find joy in answered prayer. And the big things, we find joy. I can remember a young couple, and I know I've shared this story again, but it's the one that God brought to my mind this morning of a young couple who came into my office and were so down and so depressed and so hurt and so sorrowful because the doctors had told them that they would never, ever be able to bear children. And that was their whole dream was to have a family someday. My heart broke, and I wept with them in my office, and I went over behind them and laid my hands on both of their shoulders, and I just prayed, God Almighty, if it be your will, let this pass. Let them have children. And I don't know if God did a miracle that day or whether the doctors were wrong. I don't care. In my mind, it was a miracle because in just a few weeks, they discovered that they were with child. And not only that, they've had another child. And there was much joy and much brim, just you should have seen their faces and how God had answered their prayer and their cry. Now, that doesn't mean we don't live through sorrow. There were many sorrowful days in that one year of experience that we had together. But God continued, in fact, she didn't tell this part of the story. That night, right after the doctor had given us that news, we were in the bathroom. And I don't know why we were in the bathroom, but we were. And she said, after I told her what the doctor said, please help me to find the joy in this circumstance. And I honestly said, I don't know if I can. But it began a journey of listening to God. She found something last night of all the verses that we had gone through and all the verses that have meant something to us that had the word joy in it. I would encourage you to do that, to get a good concordance and just look at all the verses that are in the Bible that deal with joy. Psalm 65, 5 through 8 says, you faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our Savior. You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas. You formed the mountains by your power and armed yourself with mighty strength. You quieted the raging oceans with the pounding waves and silenced the shouting of the nations. Those who live at the ends of the earth stand in awe of your wonders. From where the sun rises to where it rests, you inspire shouts of joy. As a product of our faith, we are faithfully always praying and asking God and he hears and he answers with his awesome deeds. As a result, because of that, he inspires us to shout joy. I just thought of this, but would you do something for me? Would you say joy as loud as you can right now with me, one, two, three, joy. Wow, does that sound good or not? Wow. God fills our heart with his joy and the product of our faith means that we should be joyfully distributing the love of Christ. I love what Max Lucado said on his sermon on this same subject. He said, contingent joy or that temporary joy depends on circumstances. Courageous joy depends on Christ. Then he went on to say, surrender your contingent joy for courageous joy and it will be contagious joy. Isn't that good? Let me say that again. Surrender your contingent joy for courageous joy and it will be contagious joy. Folks, if you're looking for the world for joy, you will never find it. Oh, you might have some temporary self-satisfaction, but the joy we're talking about today can only be found in Jesus Christ. Only can be found in Jesus Christ. If you don't know that joy, we would invite you to come to know Jesus Christ as your real and personal Savior. In fact, I would invite you to bow your heads and to close your eyes right now. I don't do this very often. But if you don't know the Jesus of Christ, Jesus Christ in your life, if you've never experienced his joy, his salvation, and you need to ask Christ for that joy, you need to ask Christ for salvation, just simply repeat this prayer in your life and if the Holy Spirit is convicting you and convincing you that you need Jesus, just pray this prayer in your heart. Dear Jesus, I know that I'm lost. Please forgive me my sin of unbelief. I receive the resurrected living Christ as my Lord and Savior. Dear Jesus, come into my life this very moment. In Jesus' name, amen. Father, if people have prayed that prayer today, I pray, Father, that they would begin to understand that life has changed, that joy is rushing into their life, a joy that can only come by knowing you. Bless them, guide them, direct them, Father. For the rest of us who are believers, Father, it's so easy to just get depressed because of the circumstances, but we must, we must, we must forever hold on to the joy of our salvation and we give you praise for that. In Jesus' name, amen. If you feel that you need to pray with someone today, there'll be people here to pray with you. If you made that prayer today, we would invite you to come forward. Let us pray with you again and help get you started on the road of discipleship, but here's the thing that I always say. If God has spoken to you this morning, would you respond? This is an invitation time. It's nothing out of the ordinary. We just invite people to come and pray with them. We always, we never close the invitation, but God has spoken to you and you'd like to come forward today. We invite you to do this during this time. Let's stand and let's sing. All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to thee my present savior I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, make me savior holy thine. Let me feel the holy spirit, truly know that thou art mine. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to thee my blessed savior I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender, Lord I give myself to thee. Fill me with thy love and power, let thy blessing fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all. All to thee my blessed savior I surrender all. As I always say, the invitation is not over with. If you need to pray with someone, please grab Marla or me or some of the other folks in our church. We would love to pray with you. One of the verses that God gave me during the trial that we went through 16 years ago was Romans 15, 13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the holy spirit that lives in you. May you leave this day with a smile on your face and joy in your heart. Amen. Let's sing. We're going to sing the first verse of the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord is my strength. ♪ Joy of the Lord ♪